This invention relates to fertilizer applicators and the mechanisms for mounting these applicators to tool bars. More particularly this invention relates to fertilizer applicators which use tines variously known as spring tines or vibra tines. These tines are characterized by an arcuate portion which penetrates the ground and a looped portion which is joined to the arcuate portion and acts as a shock absorbing mechanism. Fertilizer hose and conduits are affixed to the rear of the arcuate portions such that, when the tines are drawn through the soil, the tines part the soil immediately in front of the conduits to permit the fertilizer to be properly directed into the soil. Heretofore these tines have been mounted in separate implements having tool bars which were normal to the direction of travel over the field.
It was commonly formerly for farmers to travel over their fields with a tillage apparatus and thereafter to follow back over the fields with a separate implement for applicating fertilizer. More recently, however, it has been realized that great savings of time, money and energy can be had by reducing the number of trips taken across the fields. More frequently now, the operations of tillage and fertilization are being performed simultaneously. Large tractors have been used to draw a tillage implement and a fertilizer implement across the fields in tandem. Such a method, however, is very unwieldy. A more convenient method is to combine the two implements into one as by attaching fertilization equipment to the tillage implement.
The aforementioned spring or vibra tines bearing fertilizer conduits and hoses have been rigidly affixed to chisel plows and other types of tillage implements having tool bars normal to the direction of travel. These tines cannot be used with modern offset or tandem disking implements with present methods of attachment, however, since the tool bars involved are oblique to the direction of travel. Severe twisting forces would soon cause the tines to break. Also, the tines would not adequately shield the applicator conduits from the soil flowing by, and the conduits would soon become clogged resulting in impairment of the placement of fertilizer into the ground. Even where the tool bars involved are normal to the direction of travel over the field, there is still the inconvenience of having to withdraw the tines from the ground in order to make a turn in the field.